July 31 Days of Giving Calendar

Found this interesting link on the Red Heart site this morning. It's a calendar of giving opportunities. A nice list for some ideas about what to do with all your handiwork.

http://www.redheart.com/files/cc11947_RH_July31DaysOfGiving.pdf?utm_source=Publicaster&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=31%20Days%20of%20Giving%20Back&utm_term=July+2011+Giving+Back+calendar

Rippleing Waves Blanket

by Kelly

What I'm working on now - I made a baby sized ripple blanket once before, and it was really easy and fun. So I decided to make a larger one for me. So I staged a raid on Donna's yarn stash (which is so much larger than mine!) and picked out nine or ten skeins.

Crocheting for Charity

Kelly posted a nice article some time ago on handcrafts for charity - I stumbled across this list so I thought I'd share - http://www.dailycrocheter.com/charity.php

I'm usually the one lagging in this department. Both Donna and Kelly made a nice donation to the Fossil Ridge collection last year. I've actually done a few things for this year's contribution, so mark me ahead of my usual game. There's lots of good ideas and links here - I'm liking the red scarf project in particular, but many to choose from.

Hi Everyone,

Now I am the one who has been MIA. I was visiting with my brother for a few days over the Fourth of July and of course I have dozens of things to catch up with. The trip to see my brother is 7 hours each way so I take crochet projects and a book to read whenever I go. My husband drives and I crochet. Here is a picture of the dishcloths I made. You can find the patterns for all of these at http://www.bestfreecrochet.com/. These dishcloths all have numbers. I crocheted #148, 167, 170,172, 173, and 175. I also crocheted 20 small squares for an afghan I am working on.

I took some pictures of the fireworks display with my phone. Here is an example. The pictures aren't really good but the fireworks were gorgeous.

Embroidery

by Kelly

I've been planning out a cross stitch project for myself, so I visited some embroidery sites that I haven't been to for a while. Of course, as always, I found loads of interesting things that I would like to do some day, and thought I would share them.




 

 These beaded birds from Geninne's Art Blog  are beautiful, but I just don't think I'm patient enough to do a whole bird in seed beads. A few accents on an embroidered bird would be more my speed.

Feeling Stitchy

 This one is actually more inspirational. I'm not in love with the camera so much, but I really like the line drawing look done with backstitch. I wonder how this would look if you used a pen and ink sketch or a caricature study for your pattern.

Needle 'n Thread

And finally, some 'chicken scratch' embroidery. Chicken scratch is basically just cross stitch done on gingham fabric. Really simple patterns can create a lovely lacy look with just a needle and some floss. Check out the great article at Needle 'n Thread for wonderful pictures and tips. This is something I've been really interested in trying for some time now, but alas, I don't have any gingham!